


You're not Dratini

by awanderingmuse



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pokemon Go AU, Tour Guide!Merlin, businessman!arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7510831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awanderingmuse/pseuds/awanderingmuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur wants to ask the gorgeous man that wanders the park on his lunch break out on a date. If he can get the man's attention away from his phone for the ten minutes it will take to do so. Merlin just wants to catch a Dratini.</p>
<p>The Pokemon-Go Meet-Cute nobody asked for but everyone deserves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're not Dratini

Arthur is spending his daily lunch break in the park as he often does. Despite Morgan’s merciless goading it has nothing to do with the sudden appearance of the gorgeous lanky brunette who spends his lunches wondering aimlessly around the park on his phone. 

Arthur simply discovered that it is nice to get out from his father’s investment firm before the end of day. At least for a little bit. Lunch provides a nice opportunity to get out from under Uther’s command. Where he rules Pendragon Investments with an iron fist.

So what if this time Arthur is hoping to actually speak with the aforementioned brunette? It has nothing to do with Arthurs attraction for the complete stranger. It’s about curiosity. Namely Arthurs curiosity regarding why the man’s phone is so engrossing

The man’s long circuitous route through the city park is bring him closer. Arthur stands so he can better get the man’s attention. He notes that the golden badge on his chest reads Merlin. It is an unusual name but oddly fitting.

“Rats.” Merlin mumbles just as Arthur steps forward to greet him. The skinny brunette doesn’t look up and instead bumps right into him. Arthur watches in morbid fascination as the other man is sent sprawling.

“Watch where you’re going!” His mouth reprimands without his permission. Merlin hadn’t even been looking at all! “You’ve got to watch your surroundings. I could have been a lorry. Then you’d be in the hospital!”

Merlin watches him through the hair that has fallen over his eyes. Striking blue eyes still dazed as if trying to determine how exactly he ended up on the ground. Finally, Arthurs words seem to registers because he splutters an angry “Prat!”

That stops Arthur’s rant in its tracks. “Excuse you?” 

“I said you’re a prat.” Merlin clarifies standing and dusting his own jeans off. 

“I’m a prat!” Arthur splutters. “You weren’t even watching where you were going. You only had eyes for your phone!”

Speaking of his phone it’s vibrating in his hand. Merlin looks down again clearly losing all focus on the conversation at hand. Being ignored leaves Arthur feeling infuriated. 

“Oh, bollocks.” Merlin sighs. Still not all concerned that he’d run into Arthur. 

“I should say.” Arthur complains loudly. This not at all how this interaction was supposed to go. “I think you scuffed my shoes. They’re Italian leather you know?”

Merlin does not seem to care. He keeps staring at his phone as if that was what was important here. 

“Oi. What’s so important that you can’t even talk to me, Merlin?” Arthur demands. Realizing too late that he probably should not use Merlin’s name before being given it. It makes him seem like the exact kind of twat he doesn’t want to appear to be.

“I don’t make a habit of talking to prats. Prat.” Merlin says back sliding his phone back into his pocket and walking away. He wanders away muttering about a martini being in his Pokédex. 

Being a good business man Arthur realizes he needs to let Merlin go and try again tomorrow. He’ll apologize for being rude. Even though Merlin had been rude too. He can’t do anything about it for now, he had a meeting in fifteen minutes with a high profile client and it wouldn’t due to be late.

He wipes his mind of all thoughts of angry blue eyes staring up at him and the ways he would like those eyes to look at him before returning to work. That is until his evening commute.

Arthur sees the familiar mess of black hair over the crowd of commuters waiting for the tube. It’s bent once again over a phone. Merlin is completely absorbed by the digital world.

The tube pulls up to the station and Merlin begins walking forward right towards the solid silvery wall of the carriage. Arthur races forwards and grabs Merlin by the collar of his jacket, barely saving him from smacking into the side of the carriage.

“Really, Merlin?” Arthur can’t help ask drily. “Do you ever watch where you are going?”

Merlin looks at him in confusion for a second before who Arthur is registers. The look Merlin gives him makes him sad. “Are you ever not a prat?” Merlin demands.

“Normally I am very charming, Merlin.” Arthur retorts. “You just bring out the worst in me.”

Merlin rolls his eyes expressively. Arthur feels an answering smirk pull at his lips. How can he like someone who is so very rude? “You’re not helping your case any, mate.”

“Would taking you out for drinks help my case any?” he finds himself asking. He’d meant to ask Merlin out later once the man didn’t hate him but apparently that wasn’t what his mouth wanted. He hadn’t even given Merlin his name. “I’m Arthur, by the way.”

Merlin’s eyes dart up to his. A hard calculating look lasts only a second before Merlin seems to come to some kind of a decision. It seems dictated by Merlin’s phone going off in his hand. Merlin glances down and smiles.

“You can take me out for Fish and Chips at the place down the road.” Merlin says “I need more Pokéballs.”

That’s the second time Merlin had mentioned Poké-things in their short volatile acquaintance. Arthur was going to have to ask.

“You need more what?” Arthur asks trailing after Merlin is already headed out of the station and presumably towards the restaurant. He suspects he about to feel very overdressed but Merlin is intriguing enough that Arthur is willing to endure it.

At his word Merlin turns and stares at Arthur with open disbelief. He stops haphazardly right in the middle of a stream of tired Londoners trying to get home from work. “Do you live under a rock?”

“I do not.” Arthur says responding to Merlin’s needling. The grin that brightens Merlin’s face is a reward in itself. They’re going to get along smashingly as long as they don’t kill each other first. 

Merlin resumes his walk towards the restaurant. Arthur only has to take a few hurried steps to catch up. 

“If you don’t live under a rock then why don’t you know about Pokémon-Go?” Merlin asks once they’re walking together. He’s looking at his phone again, leaving Arthur to watch out for him.

“Because I don’t play kids games?” Arthur asks subtly guiding Merlin around the trash can whose space he was about to invade.

Merlin shrugs. “It’s your loss.” Then. “Oh wait a second. I have to catch this Nidorina.”

Merlin catches the Pokémon and they continue on their way through the busy city streets.

Arthur hates to admit it but his curiosity is piqued about the game. Not that he would admit it to Merlin. He doesn’t need that much teasing form someone he’s trying to get to know, thank you.

“So what do you do?” Merlin asks. “I’ve seen you in the park. You’re typically talking loudly on your cell.”

“I help my father run his investment firm.” Arthur says. He half expects that to make Merlin pause. It’s not every day someone finds out they’re going on a rather random date with the son of a rich and famous business mogul. 

Merlin either doesn’t put two and two together or doesn’t care. He simply hums and says, “Do you like it?”

“I guess.” Arthur says. “What about you?”

Merlin’s face brightens. “I’m a tour guide at the V&A. I love it.”

The conversation about what they do for living lasts them always to the fish and chips shop. Once there, Merlin has to stop and get some pokéballs from the pokéstop. Arthur can’t rein his curiosity anymore and asks Merlin to show him the game despite Merlin silently laughing at him for it.  
Somehow that leads to Arthur asking Merlin what he’d been doing in the park anyways. What could be so important that Merlin couldn’t even take notice of the bloke trying to ask him on a date?

Merlin smiles sheepishly and says that he was looking for a Dratini to name Aithusa. Apparently he’d always done so as a child and was not going to change the behavior for the new game. The story intrigues Arthur and he asks for the story. 

Somehow Merlin uses the fact to convince Arthur to download the app to his phone. The conversation about how to play the game lasts them through their meal. If Arthur keeps an eye on his phone for any Pokémon in the area, it’s no one’s business but his and Merlin’s. By the end of the date they’ve both acquired three new Pokémon.

When they part ways Arthur scores Merlin’s number and a promise for a repeat date at the end of the work week. He receives a text halfway home saying, “You can help me find Aithusa tomorrow at lunch if you want.”

What can Arthur do but agree to the date?

If a month later Arthur celebrates their anniversary by having his newly made friends at Niantic set up a pokéstop and gym in his and Merlin’s lunch break park Arthur won’t let Merlin tease him about it. He will take Merlin home with him that night, though. Arthur will certainly accept Merlin’s private thanks in desperate kisses and breathless smiles.


End file.
